Great Falls man has collected more than 80 kitchen mixers dating back to the 1930s

Nov. 2, 2013

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Tribune Staff Writer

Steve Lynch holds an example of a dirty motor unit. He said he would never use one he hadn't sandblasted clean of flour and mold. / TRIBUNE PHOTO/RION SANDERS

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Editor’s note: This is the first in an occasional series about interesting Montana people.

Steve Lynch of Great Falls painted one of the kitchen mixers in his large collection with a creamsicle pallet of orange and cream.

“I like to take creative license to what I do,” he said.

Lynch just finished restoring the 1947 GE mixer, which has three beaters and a light. The motor folds down and attachments hook to the top so the light that normally shines down on the beaters shines up on the juicer and other attachments.

The Great Falls man is a mixer collector, a hobby that has grown in popularity. Lynch is part of a Facebook group of collectors, and said going online has helped the hobby “explode.”

Another restored mixer, a 1956 Sunbeam, went to his son in honor of his wedding, with a lavender color scheme to match bridesmaid dresses and a copper badge. The next will be teal and cream like a ’57 Chevy.

He shuns a throwaway society.

“If I can stop someone from throwing it out when it might have life still” his goal is accomplished, Lynch said. “If they want to give it a second life, I’ll take it.”

The oldest of Lynch’s mixers comes from the early 1930s. As he showed off his prize restorations, Lynch noted the unusual attachment: an ice cream maker, a blender, a milkshake maker, juicers, a pea sheller (with the box it came in), a meat grinder and even a butter churn.

“Supermarkets have made a lot of these obsolete,” he said. “The coffee grinder attachment is the most beloved of my collection.”

A potato peeler is the attachment he most covets and the biggest gap in his collection.

“It’s a sweet piece, but they’re hard to come by,” he said.

“I always get the literature, too. They’re just great,” he added.

He also has, of course, mixer bowls. Some are jadite with uranium. The green bowls glow under black light. He even collects hang tags.

“The worst is when you get a rare piece of glassware in the mail and it’s shattered,” he said. “There’s one more gone, as if they weren’t rare enough.”

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In the basement, 80 “wounded soldiers” await restoration.

“I’m just going to let you imagine what my wife thinks of this hobby, though she’s used to it now,” Lynch said.

He’s culled about 15 to 20 from his collection, selling restored mixers through Etsy and eBay. It’s not really a business yet but on its way.

Lynch is chief of quality assurance and an airplane mechanic for the Montana Air National Guard. He likes to tinker, and the mixer motors aren’t too complex. He likes to paint them, too, and clean what can be a disgusting motor clogged with flour and even mold. He strips and sandblasts them.

“I won’t use one I haven’t cleaned,” he said.

Pinning down the exact year of the mixers is hard, so he estimates the date, except for two Sunbeam Model 7-1 mixers in his collection made of steel during an aluminum shortage between December 1941 and April 1942. The mixers are heavy, though adaptable to hand-held use.

A 1936 white Sunbeam mixer with art deco design came from Florida in a friend’s suitcase. A 1940s model has a big grill just like a car’s front.

“The more details I can bring back the better, and they’re serviceable unlike the ones you get today made of plastic,” he said. Lynch repairs newer KitchenAid mixers, too.

“I appreciate they’re still made in the country,” he said. “I like that I can take them apart. I don’t even think they understood how long they would last.”

Mixer collectors often are more driven by sentiment — such as what grandma used — than anything else. However, as companies experimented trying to determine what a mixer should be like, they created wild, flash-in-the-pan designs that are collectable.

“A lot of people comment that they love the smell of their grandma’s old mixer,” he said. “My satisfaction is to tweak them and get them running really smooth.”